First Photograph
“An attic window in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, summer 1826. Nicéphore Niépce checks a pewter plate in a wooden camera obscura. Foreground shows the plate's faint heliograph of a courtyard, exposure already running into its eighth hour; midground reveals Niépce in shirtsleeves consulting notes by lamplight; through the window, the Burgundy countryside glows in afternoon sun.”
